Introduction: Edgar Allan Poe and Nineteenth-Century Medicine

This introduction to a multi-essay feature on Edgar Allan Poe and nineteenth-century medicine takes a biographical approach to Poe’s fascination with the practices of medicine in his lifetime and provides an overview of the variety of medical procedures, utensils, nostrums, scandals, and theories that traverse the pages of his fiction. Addressing the notoriety surrounding his alcoholism, the introduction also explores Poe’s drinking as a form of self-medicating, comprehended against the background of the deeply unjust, disordered economic system of antebellum America. The rationale for the papers included in the special feature follows from this viewpoint, showing how each covers the representation of a particular medical practice in Poe’s fiction alongside a keen understanding of the world in which he lived.